Current news concerning Oaxaca, Mexico as well as Mark's thoughts, for what they are worth, on the world's most pressing issues of the day.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Oaxaca, Mexico: Killer(s) of American reporter identified; APPO was indeed armed and shooting

FROM THE LEFT: Red shirt with rifle: Juan Carlos Soriano Velasco aka "El Chapulin" (The Grasshopper), identified as a policeman;Dark jacket with pistol: Manuel Aguilar, identified as City Personnel Manager; Red shirt with pistol: Avel (sic) Santiago Zárate, identified as city councilman in charge of public security.

It is and has been widely ballyhooed that the APPO insurrectionists are not armed. One irate left-wing commenter went so far as to state, "It's a well known fact that APPO is not armed." Sorry lady, whomever you are sitting up there on your fat ass, but it's a well known fact that APPO is, indeed, armed. The problem has been that photographers have to be so careful around the APPO barricades and the APPO roving gangs, called "brígadas móviles" (mobile brigades). Any unwanted photo can result in a beating and destruction of equipment.

Photographers have to "register" with APPO and receive a permit. These permits are regularly canceled and then grudgingly reissued whenever APPO officials receive complaints from their followers about photos or APPO sees photos in the newpapers that are, uh, less than complimentary. Reporters have been reduced to reporting "gunshots" and "scattered gunshots of indeterminant origen" to describe gunfights.

So the following photos are a rarity. These photos show quite clearly that APPO thugs are armed. The first photo shows an APPO gunman en flagrante (shootin' at sumbody).

APPO not armed?

More unarmed APPO insurrectionists

Below is Flavio Sosa, the leader of APPO.

He has a third grade education and is a convicted felon. He spent time in prison (he denies this) for ripping off (he denies this also) a CONASUPO community store which he and his family managed for the government. When he got out of jail, he was befriended and still is supported financially by ex-governor José Murat Casab, a long-time political rival of current governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz. It has been charged by the political party Alternativa that Murat Casab is using Flavio Sosa to "settle accounts" with Ruiz Ortiz. Alternativa says it has presented evidence of this to the federal attorney general for action. That's a laugh.

He supposedly owns a fleet of 50 taxis although the source of the money he used to buy 50 taxis is unknown. He has two daughters who are enrolled in a private French/English/Spanish school here in Oaxaca de Juarez (he denies this also but the children's friends say otherwise) while 1.3 million other school children throughout the state have had no classes for 5 months.